From early times man has devised ways to break through the ice to reach the water below for his personal needs and to catch the fish dwelling in the body of water. The first patent for an ice auger issued to Clark in 1873 (U.S. Pat. No. 139,769). Today, ice fishing has become a major winter pastime evoking the creativity of the fishermen in devising more efficient means to insure the retrieval of their catch. Ice augers themselves have not changed appreciably in recent years, but though they are capable of drilling through ice layers of from several inches to more than five feet, the resulting hole always has a sharp edge at its bottom. Once a fish has been caught, the line must be played and the fish drawn up through the relatively narrow hole. Often, the line, stretched at a right angle and rubbing against the sharp edge of the hole is broken and the prize fish of the day is lost. A fish may be pulled hard against the edge and injured or the hook dislodged from its mouth and again lost. Or, it may be difficult to turn a large fish into the narrow hole and again the fish may be injured or lost.
Many attempts have been made to develop devices to ream the edge of the hole both to smooth the sharp edge so the line will not be severed and to flare the bottom of the hole to make it easier to pull the fish through. Anderson, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,299,970, teaches a reamer that is hand rotated, has horizontal support struts that rest on the surface of the ice and an annular guide ring to steady the reamer. Two pivotally attached blades can be flared outward to smooth the edge and widen the lower portion of the hole. This device also has a pivoted handle to assist in lifting the device after the edge has been reamed. Wicklund teaches a hand rotated reamer with a central tubular shaft, two pivotally mounted blades, and a spring biased control rod disposed within the tubular shaft. The control rod is raised to extend the blades outward to ream the hole. (U.S. Pat. No. 3,397,750) See also the hand rotated ice hole flarer of Andeen, U.S. Pat. No. 3,749,184, which utilizes three reaming blades and to which an ice cutting tool may be attached to make the initial hole in the ice. The devices of Wicklund and Andeen must be hand held and hand rotated with no additional support to prevent wobble while the bottom of the hole is reamed.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,873,419, Berry et al. teach a motor driven hole reamer having a central tubular shaft and a control rod that is disposed adjacent to the central shaft to change the orientation of support arms that extend and retract the reamer blades. This device also includes two horizontal plates about the central shaft, a movable plate that can be adjusted in height along the central shaft according the thickness of the ice and a fixed plate at the bottom of the shaft to which the blade assembly is attached. The two plates serve to steady the reamer within the hole for a more efficient operation.
All of these devices must be carried on to the ice in addition to the auger, fishing gear, and any other equipment the sportsman may require, all while wearing many layers of warm clothing. This has lead to the development of devices that include a reaming blade with the auger. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,819,744, Caswell teaches an ice auger equipped with ice boring blades and ice reaming blades in addition to the flighting or helical blade. A central tubular shaft surrounds a drive bar that controls the pair of ice boring blades to cut through the ice while the helical blade brings the ice chips to the surface. When the initial hole has been cut through the ice layer, the reaming blades are engaged by the drive bar to smooth the edge and flare the lower portion of the hole. A brace and bit arrangement attached to the top of the drive bar is manually rotated both to drill the hole and to ream the edge.
Hawrylak, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,190,113, attaches a horizontal tubular housing that is slightly shorter than the radius of the helical blade to the bottom of the central tubular shaft of a conventional ice auger. A spring biased reaming blade is disposed within this housing and is activated by means of a cable that extends from the blade to the top of the shaft where it engages a rotatable lever. The auger is motor driven and once the hole has been cut the lever is rotated, the reamer blade extended and the edge of the hole reamed. The helical auger blade also helps to center the device within the hole. The reamer blade of this device appears to be sufficient size to smooth the edge of the hole, but is too narrow to provide a widened or funnel shaped opening.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,950,738, Caswell et al. have developed an attachment to a conventional motor driven ice auger to ream the bottom of the ice hole. A bracket is mounted near the ice cutting blade which is attached to the advancing edge of the flighting. The bracket forms a pivotal attachment for the reaming blade that has two positions, a transport position that is substantially vertical and an operable position which is substantially horizontal. The reaming blade is biased toward the transport position but is set about one inch outward of the radius of the helical blade so that once the auger breaks through the ice layer the reaming blade extends outward beyond the edge of the hole below the bottom surface of the ice sheet. A slight upward motion of the auger causes the reaming blade to catch the underside of the ice layer and ream it into a funnel shape. The auger can then be lowered sufficiently below the ice layer so the reaming blade returns to the transport position causing it to come in contact with the slanted lower wall of the ice hole where it moves upward along the funnel shape and into the ice hole so the device can be lifted out of the hole. A stabilizing ring is mounted on the central shaft of the auger above the ice cutting blade. The operation of the reaming blade depends upon the operator raising and lowering the auger at the proper time, while the motor is engaged, to activate and deactivate the reaming blade, all the while maintaining the auger in the vertical orientation properly centered in the hole.
There is a need for an ice auger equipped with a reaming blade that can easily be operable from a first resting position to a second reaming or use position and thereafter returned to the first position. There is a need for this to be accomplished while the motor is engaged, the auger is in full operation, and the operator does not have to raise or lower the rotating auger to return the reaming blade to the resting position before removing the auger from the ice hole. There is a need for such an equipped auger that has a reaming blade that is strong, sturdy and easy to engage while the auger is running so that there is no need to turn the motor on and off or for the operator to remove his hands from the motor handles. There is a need for such an equipped auger that has a blade that will smooth the edge of the hole and create a funnel shaped opening in a single operation that is both quick and efficient.